


The Constable and the Clockwork Baron

by PhantomFlutist



Series: Fic Request February 2018 [3]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Steampunk, Happy Ending, Kid Fic, M/M, Mentions of Child Slavery, Mentions of kidnapping, Not by the main characters, constable!Hakyeon, spot the Hongbin, warm-hearted thief!Sanghyuk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:04:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PhantomFlutist/pseuds/PhantomFlutist
Summary: Is this why you steal?No. Let me show you.Hakyeon believed that constables were honor-bound to do good. An encounter with a young thief, however, would change his definition of good and those who did it.





	The Constable and the Clockwork Baron

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Pinkpansy2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pinkpansy2/gifts).

> First of all, many thanks to Pinkpansy2 for their infinite patience while I took 18 months to write this fic request! Every time I thought I had it nearly done, it grew even more. Also it's not exactly the prompt anymore? I tried. It got away from me. I hope you like it anyway!
> 
> Secondly I must give thanks to my sister R, who helped motivate me to finally finish this fic and also fixed a bunch of my typos and funky dialogue things (as I'm apparently not so good with accents). Any remaining mistakes are my own.

_ Prompt: Steampunk/Dystopian AU!, where a newbie optimistic officer comes across a thief stealing from a street vendor, and decides to offer them a place to stay in exchange for leaving behind their thieving life. (And, of course, returning the stolen item as well). For VIXX, maybe Leo/Hongbin or N/Hyuk, but it’s up to you. _

\---

_ It’s only my second week on the job, _ Hakyeon lamented to himself, pushing his legs to pump faster. He dashed around a woman carrying a basket of flowers, apologizing breathlessly when he nearly caused her to overbalance and fall over, and called again, “Stop, thief!”

The thief in question—a tall, scrawny boy dressed in tattered clothes, who’d just pilfered half a dozen valuable trinkets off a street vendor’s stall—turned back to glance at Hakyeon over his shoulder,  _ stuck his tongue out, _ and then disappeared down an alleyway.

Hakyeon followed, swung around the corner of a crumbling brick building to find a dead-end street filled with refuse and no boy in sight.

He cursed, scrubbing his hands over his face.

He stared at the empty alley for another moment or two and thought about what the Captain was going to do when he found out that Hakyeon had lost a criminal so embarrassingly.

_ I wonder if it’s too late to transfer to the border guard. _

\---

“You have midnight dock patrol for the next three weeks, Constable. Try not to screw it up,” Captain Lee grunted, already looking back down at his paperwork as he shooed Hakyeon away.

Hakyeon snapped a smart salute, said, “Yes, sir,” and beat a hasty retreat from the office. 

Outside, Taekwoon was waiting. His lips quirked when he caught sight of Hakyeon’s disgruntled face.

“Shut up,” Hakyeon muttered darkly.

“I didn’t say anything,” Taekwoon said, suspiciously mild.

Hakyeon punched him in the arm and ignored the sound of gears whirring as he stalked off and Taekwoon followed. “You were laughing. I could tell,” he insisted.

Taekwoon hummed softly but didn’t refute the claim.

“Midnight dock patrol for  _ three weeks!” _ Hakyeon lamented, boots clattering against the stone floors as he stomped his way out of the precinct.

The gears clicked to a stop as Taekwoon caught his arm and pulled him up short. “It could be worse,” he said, even as ever. “You could have been suspended.”

_ And then what would your poor mother do? _ he didn’t have to say.

Hakyeon heaved a sigh and quit trying to break free of Taekwoon’s hold. But he couldn’t help but grumble one more time, “It was  _ one minor thief.” _

Taekwoon nodded patiently and pointed out, “But you broke protocol and left your partner behind.”

The last of the fight left him and Hakyeon slumped heavily against the nearest wall. “Sorry, my friend,” he murmured.

“I was more worried about you,” Taekwoon said. His lips quirked into another half-smile and he teased, “You know you’re useless in a fight.”

“Hey!” Hakyeon protested, punching Taekwoon’s shoulder. “I am not!”

A soft chuff of laughter escaped Taekwoon and he ducked away from Hakyeon’s sudden onslaught of petulant fists.

“Stop laughing, you bastard! I am not useless!”

It only served to make Taekwoon snort and tackle him, wrestling him down until all his limbs were trapped and he could no longer attempt to maul his own partner.

“You’re not useless,” Taekwoon agreed, smiling softly down at him. “But sometimes you don’t think. No more unnecessary risks, Hakyeon.”

Hakyeon sighed and went limp, letting Taekwoon pin him. He knocked his head back against the cool stone floor. He had to admit that the takedown had been impressive. Taekwoon was holding him in place with only one arm and leg, sitting heavily across Hakyeon’s thighs with his clockwork leg sprawled out to one side.

“No more unnecessary risks,” Taekwoon repeated, clearly waiting for Hakyeon to agree.

“Fine,” Hakyeon said. He tugged at the grip Taekwoon had around his wrists, impossibly-large hand like a steel vice. “Just let me up.”

Taekwoon huffed out his amusement again but stood and pulled Hakyeon to his feet. “A meal and then home,” he suggested. “You should rest before your midnight patrol.”

“You’re right,” Hakyeon said. “I hate it when you’re right.”

Taekwoon just laughed at him.

\---

Midnight dock patrol was  _ boring. _ Because of the treacherous cliffs that lined the only inlet to the city's docks, no ships were allowed in or out between sunset and sunrise. Meaning there were no seamen wandering about, no dock workers hauling things to and fro, just a few beggars sitting about and the occasional hired guard posted at the entrance of some rich merchant's warehouse.

And Hakyeon, walking the predetermined path, one hand on the hilt of his sword and the other frequently utilized to cover a yawn.

He had plenty of time to think while he walked. And he had to admit that Taekwoon (and the Captain) had been right. Theirs was not a safe city. Perhaps the thief he’d been chasing was little more than an overgrown pickpocket, but that would not always be the case. So many of the city’s criminals (and more of them every day, it seemed) were armed and dangerous and prepared to fight even a constable. It was foolish for Hakyeon to try to confront one of them on his own.

So engrossed was he in his own thoughts that he nearly passed the mouth of the alley. It was shadowed, well out of the pool of light that the gas lamps offered on the wider streets, and had Hakyeon not heard a noise he may have walked on without a second look.

But there was a soft grinding of metal on metal, a bitten-off curse, and he could guess well enough what was happening. The owner or an employee struggling with a stubborn key, perhaps, but more likely someone was down there trying to pick a lock.

It was his duty to look into it.

He stepped down the alley, not bothering to disguise the sound of his footsteps on the cobblestones. He wrapped his hand tightly around his sword as he moved, aware enough to ensure he would be able to draw quickly if need be.

A shadowed figure had begun to take shape, half-hidden in a doorway, as Hakyeon’s eyes adjusted to the dark.

“Ho, there!” he called out as he neared. “Identify yourself.”

The figure jerked, their head whipped up, and the distant light of the gas lamps glinted off of dark irises. It was difficult to make out features in the dim light, difficult to even tell whether the person was male or female. But they were tall and made of sharp angles. The silhouette was half-familiar.

“Identify yourself,” he called again when the figure said nothing, and took a few more steps forward.

Slowly, the figure drew their hands away from the door with a screech and grind of metal and took a step back, farther into the shadows. Still they said nothing.

Hakyeon let out a huff of impatience and, abandoning caution and protocol both, trotted forward and caught the figure’s arm before they could escape. His hand closed around metal instead of flesh – a clockwork arm. He was close enough now to see the details of it, three joints in each finger just like a real hand, each piece moving independently. It was high-quality work, and likely expensive.

“Please, Sir,” the boy said – for he was a boy, square-jawed and dark-eyed, his hair grown long enough to pull into a tail at the back of his head. And more than that, Hakyeon found that he was familiar – it was the thief from the marketplace.

“Is this why you steal?” Hakyeon asked, lifting the boy’s arm slightly.

The boy swallowed audibly and then said, “No.”

“Why then?” Hakyeon had his other hand still on the hilt of his sword, but he doubted he would draw it.

“Let me show you,” the boy begged, and though it was dark Hakyeon felt the boy’s eyes searching his.

Hakyeon would have expected smugness. He had not expected this...desperation. “Show me what?”

“What’s in the warehouse.  _ Please,”  _ the boy said again, as though that single word held the power to save him.

“You want me to  _ allow  _ you to burgle the place?”

The boy shook his head. “I won’t even touch anything inside unless you give me leave, I swear it.”

It was against Hakyeon’s better judgment. It was against every protocol that he’d been taught since joining the force. The Captain had maintained since day one that Hakyeon was too soft to be a constable. Perhaps he’d been right. “Fine,” he said at last. “But if you so much as  _ breathe  _ wrong I’m taking you into the precinct.”

“Yes, Sir,” the boy said, and waited until Hakyeon had released his arm to turn back to the warehouse door. He did something that made several small, needle-like objects protrude from the tips of his clockwork fingers, and set to work picking the lock.

It was fortunate that by the time the door was open, Hakyeon’s eyes had adjusted to the dark. If not, he might have missed what the boy was clearly trying to show him.

The outer door led into a small antechamber, the door of which was open into the warehouse proper, a hugely oversized cavern that was suspiciously empty but for a few boxes on the far side.

And a cage.

Hakyeon could see the heavy metal bars of it from where he stood. It was large – the size of a carriage, he would guess, if not larger – and inside it were a handful of pale, huddled forms.

He pushed past the boy and marched straight into the warehouse, directly to the cage. The forms inside were children, younger even than the thief boy, and they were all far too thin, their faces gaunt, their clothing ragged. Five of them, defenseless children locked in a cage. There was really only one reason that Hakyeon could think of for that to have happened.

“Slavers?” he asked, voice both too soft and too echoing in the empty space.

The boy drew even with him, and his hands clenched tightly into fists. The gears in his clockwork arm hissed and clicked, the sound strangely comforting to Hakyeon, who had come to associate it with Taekwoon’s calm, steady presence. “There’s a whole faction of them, I think. They keep moving the kids around. This is only the third time I’ve found any of them.”

Hakyeon’s intake of breath was sharp and loud. “There are more?”

“At least a dozen other kids are still missing,” the boy said. He kept his eyes on the children, who were starting to stir from slumber, their eyes locking on Hakyeon in his constable’s uniform and filling with hope.

“I have to take this to the Captain,” Hakyeon said.

The boy shook his head and turned to look at Hakyeon. In the dark his expression was difficult to interpret, but Hakyeon thought he looked desperate. “There’s no time. They always move them before dawn. We might not get another chance.”

Hakyeon let out a heavy sigh and wished for Taekwoon’s steady, rational person beside him. Instead he said, “They have kin that’s missing them?”

“Some of them,” the boy replied, haltingly, like he thought that Hakyeon would care less about street-rats than about children from respectable families. Either way they were kids, and slavery was  _ illegal. _

“You can get them home?” Hakyeon asked, making himself really  _ look _ at the kids – none of them looked like anything but orphans, but maybe that was captivity doing that to them. How long had they been there?

The boy straightened a bit, and nodded firmly. “Yes, Sir.”

Hakyeon stepped forward and inspected the lock on the cage – sturdy, but probably not impossible to pick or break. “And this?”

Immediately, the boy touched something on his clockwork hand that made the lockpicking tools flick out again, and he nudged Hakyeon aside and got to work.

The children were starting to respond, scooting forward and staring at them with wide eyes. One of them leaned close to another and whispered, “It’s  _ him.” _

Hakyeon followed their line of sight, the way they stared in awe at the older boy picking the lock on their cage, and then he approached the bars and crouched down, putting himself on level with the children. “Hi there,” he said, smiling at them, trying to sound as comforting as possible. “We’re going to get you out of there, just hold on, alright?”

A few of the children nodded quickly, and one girl, eyeing the hand that Hakyeon had resting casually on his sword hilt, asked, “You a constable?”

“That’s right,” Hakyeon replied. Beside him there was a grind of metal and a bitten-off curse. “I will personally ensure that you all get home safe.”

One boy muttered, “Ain’t got no home.”

Hakyeon nodded solemnly and, even though he was fairly certain the boy hadn’t meant to be heard, told him, “Then I’ll make sure you get somewhere safe.”

The boy’s arms crossed and he let out a huff, but he didn’t say anything more.

More grinding metal and muttered curses, and Hakyeon turned back to the thief boy and asked, “What is taking so long?”

His clockwork arm jerked and the boy hissed as though in pain. “Stupid piece of–” he glanced at the children and cut himself off. “Lock’s better than I expected. Gimme a minute.”

Hakyeon sat back on his heels and resigned himself to waiting. But every minute that passed, every clack and grind and bitten-off curse, brought his hackles up a little further. His heart was starting to pound, his palm sweating against the hilt of his sword. The warehouse had no windows, so he had no way of knowing how far off dawn still was. And worse, they knew only that the slavers moved their prisoners  _ before _ dawn. Not how long before.

He wished Taekwoon was there.

Standing, Hakyeon turned and retreated a few paces from the cage, standing alert between the door and the children. If the slavers did come, perhaps Hakyeon could hold them off long enough for the children to escape somehow.

His grip twisting around his sword, Hakyeon could feel the tension growing in his shoulders. His feet had already slid slightly apart, balancing his weight, preparing for a fight that hadn’t yet come.

And then there was a victorious noise behind him, a clank as the lock fell away, the creak of the cage door opening. Hakyeon turned to see the children scrambling out, the smallest one – perhaps no more than five years old – approaching their savior and tugging at his sleeve.

The thief boy beamed a smile down at the tiny child and scooped him into his arms. The younger boy immediately laid his head on his shoulder. Hakyeon had to fight a sudden urge to coo at how sweet a picture they made.

The boy with the clockwork arm was still smiling when he approached Hakyeon. “Shall we, Constable?” he asked, with a smarmy wink. It threw Hakyeon a bit, the casual flirtation. Perhaps it was meant to be mocking, like their brief interaction in the marketplace, but it didn’t come across that way.

Hakyeon shook himself out of it and said, “Right, stay behind me until we’re sure the alley’s clear.”

The children fell into line easily, crowding behind Hakyeon as he went to the warehouse door and opened it a crack to look out. The alley seemed empty, as did the street beyond, and he looked back at the children and put a finger to his lips.  _ Stay quiet. _ He imagined they knew quite well how to do that.

Out into the alley, and down to the gaslit cobblestone street. There was no one in sight, the whole area eerily deserted the way it always was at night. As far as Hakyeon could tell, nothing had changed since he had taken his detour.

Still he stepped carefully, mindful of the noise of his heavy boots on the stones. He led them on the quickest path away from the docks and back towards the residential districts.

He barely breathed until they were well clear of the warehouse, of the docks and their ominous stillness. He only truly relaxed when he began to see lights in the windows of some of the houses that they passed, heard voices floating through open windows down into the street.

When they reached the corner of one of the main thoroughfares, he paused a short distance from the open door of a tavern, which had music and shouting and light still spilling out even at such a late hour.

Hakyeon looked to the boy with the clockwork arm and asked, “Where to?”

“I live behind Weston’s bakery,” piped up one of the girls. She was perhaps the oldest, and the same one who had asked if he was a constable. Her dress was filthy, stained and torn, but the careful stitching and the ruffles along the collar and the cuffs suggested that she had a parent who would be relieved to have her home.

Another child raised a tentative hand and said that his home was near a butcher’s, but the rest were silent.

Hakyeon nodded at them, their motley, ragtag little group, and said, “Right, then. We’ll get these two home and then find someplace safe for the rest of you, yeah?”

“I have a place,” the boy with the clockwork arm put in. “They’ll be safe there. Taken care of.”

Hakyeon eyed him. He thought about asking the boy,  _ Is this why you steal? _ and being told in reply,  _ No. Let me show you. _

He thought about being told,  _ This is only the third time I’ve found any of them, _ and wondered how many other kids the boy was already sheltering.

“You sure?” Hakyeon asked anyway.

The boy just nodded, but a muscle in his jaw twitched. He was bound and determined to take care of the kids, Hakyeon would give him that.

“Alright, off we go then,” Hakyeon said, and started leading them down the street again. “Weston’s first, and then the butcher’s. Step careful, the street’s a mess up here.” And none of the kids were wearing any shoes. It was only early autumn and hadn’t really started to cool down yet, but it was far too easy to come across broken glass or splintered wood or something worse lying about in the streets in this city.

The girl’s mother cried when Hakyeon knocked on their door, and fell to her knees to hug her daughter. The boy who lived near the butcher’s refused to let Hakyeon knock, and instead slipped into the house by the back way, but just a few moments later the door opened again and a gruff-looking man with a full beard and a heavy stare stepped out, gave Hakyeon a long look, and then nodded once before he went back inside.

“Well, then,” Hakyeon said, when that was taken care of. “Where to next?”

The boy with the clockwork arm shifted the weight of the child in his arms, who had fallen asleep during their walk, and said, “I can take it from here.”

“You sure? I can carry him for a while if you’re tired,” Hakyeon offered.

“Meaning no offense, Constable, but I’d rather you not know where I live,” the boy said, and the gruffness of his tone was offset by a teasing grin.

Hakyeon fell back a step, tucked his hands together in the small of his back, and admitted, “That seems reasonable. But kid?”

The boy’s head cocked to one side, and he said, “Not a kid. I’m twenty.”

Hakyeon blinked slowly several times. Finally he muttered, “God, you need a good feeding.” The boy – man – was tall, but so rail-thin and with such a boyish face that Hakyeon had simply assumed. Or maybe he was getting old.

The man laughed brightly, and then shifted the child against his shoulder again when the noise caused him to stir. “So do they,” he said, nodding down at the kids.

Looking at their gaunt faces, Hakyeon could only concede the point. “So do some other kids, I’m guessing,” he said casually, rocking back on his heels. “So if you hear about something like this again? Bring it to me. I’ll get half the precinct there to help, and maybe we’ll even get some of the scoundrels that are doing this.”

“Constables don’t care about orphans and street-rats,” the man said, his wide nose wrinkling.

“I do,” Hakyeon said, and he stopped affecting the casual posture so that the man would know he was serious, spine straight, gaze steady. “My partner does. And the Captain will, if he knows what’s going on.”

“You’re gonna tell him?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Hakyeon shrugged.

The man stared him down. His eyes were dark and deep beneath heavy brows. “Gonna go out on a limb here and say you didn’t follow procedure tonight.”

Hakyeon just shrugged again. “Was already in trouble. Doesn’t matter as long as I’m doing the right thing.”

“And that’s what you think you’re doing here?”

“I don’t think.” Hakyeon waved a hand at the kids, at the house they were still standing in front of. “Five kids are safe tonight. That was the right choice.”

The man just watched him for a while longer, face inscrutable. Finally, he said, “If they realize that a constable helped with the breakout they’re gonna get a lot more careful.” He paused to scrub a hand through his hair and then added, “But if I get wind of anything, I’ll let you know.”

Hakyeon nodded. That was all he could ask for.

“Right then. March,” the man ordered, corralling the kids forward. “A meal and then bed for you lot.” As they neared the next corner, he turned back beneath a gas lamp and winked at Hakyeon. “See you, Constable.”

And then they were gone, and Hakyeon glanced up at the lightening sky and decided that he’d just as well go back to the precinct and give his report, and then go home to bed himself.

\---

“There you are,” Taekwoon called out as Hakyeon joined him at the entrance to the precinct. It was his first day back on regular duty after the Captain had extended his punishment another three weeks for choosing to handle the situation with the captive children on his own instead of going to the precinct for help.

In spite of the punishment, the Captain had added, “But saving those children was the right call. Let’s hope your connection gets us more intel on the slavers,” before he’d dismissed Hakyeon.

After six weeks patrolling on his own in the dark, Hakyeon was ready to return to his regular duties. He clapped Taekwoon on the shoulder and said, “It’s good to be back.”

Taekwoon’s small smile was answer enough, and together they set out for their assigned patrol.

The residential area they'd been assigned for the day was quiet, at least as much as any part of the city ever was. People still passed them in the constant, rambling congestion of too many pedestrians on too small a street, and beggars sat on nearly every corner.

The sun was bright above, almost blinding to Hakyeon, who had spent the last few weeks in the dark. But it felt good on his skin, and he was so grateful to be back on regular duty that he would have taken even heavy rain just to be patrolling next to Taekwoon again.

Though, perhaps in heavy rain he would not have noticed the lithe form hovering in the mouth of an alleyway up ahead. He caught Taekwoon's eye and nodded in that direction, and together they slipped from the crowd and followed the young man's retreating back further into the alley's shadows.

The hiss and click of Taekwoon’s clockwork leg gained an arrhythmic echo when they drew near, and the man with the clockwork arm looked Taekwoon up and down and then narrowed his eyes at Hakyeon.

“My partner,” Hakyeon said.

Taekwoon shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the dirty wall, the picture of nonchalance.

The other man’s look sharpened for another moment, and then finally he must have decided that Taekwoon wasn’t a threat, because he turned his attention more fully to Hakyeon and said, “You asked me to tell you if I heard anything.”

Hakyeon nodded once.

The man’s hand made an abortive movement, like he meant to scrub fingers through his hair but had stopped himself. For a moment he stood there with his arm in the air, and then his fingers clenched into a fist and dropped again to his side. “There are five, maybe six more kids missing. Mostly,” his eyes flicked to Taekwoon and away again, “mostly street kids. Orphans.”

Hakyeon’s chest had tightened. He was hoping for information about the slavers’ movements, or a location where they were holding the children. Not...this.

“They don’t usually take them this quick, or this obvious,” the man was saying. “Contact of mine might have seen one of ‘em. Said the girl followed a strange man down towards the docks. That was the last anyone heard of her.”

“Think your friend can describe this strange man?” Taekwoon asked. He was looking out at the mouth of the alley rather than at the other man, and his posture hadn’t changed.

The man frowned. “Maybe,” he said. “It was dusk, and he said the bloke was wearing a – hat, a hood or something.”

“Hiding his face,” Hakyeon murmured. He stuck a thumbnail in his mouth and gnawed on it while he thought. “But he definitely took her toward the docks?”

The man nodded, his long ponytail bobbing at the back of his head. “My contact didn’t follow them far, but he thought that was where they were headed. Not much else in that direction.”

“No, you’re right,” Hakyeon said. “How many are missing now, then? Seventeen, eighteen?”

“At least.”

Hakyeon swore colorfully.

“I’ve got my ear to the ground, but I haven’t been able to find where they’re keeping them yet,” the man said. He kicked at the ground, scattering dust and loose debris.

“And the last warehouse was rented under a false name for just a few days,” Hakyeon said. “The owner couldn’t give us anything useful.”

Taekwoon spoke up again, his eyes back on them. “But they’re only taking children?”

The man let out a great heaving breath and finally gave in to the urge to shove a hand through his hair. Some of it caught in the metal joints of his clockwork fingers and tugged the tail askew. “All under twelve, that I know of,” he agreed. “Don’t even know what they want them for, but some of these kids, they’ve been gone for–” he stopped, scowling down at the ground.

He didn’t have to say it. Hakyeon knew as well as anybody, the longer the children were missing, the less likely it was that they’d find them alive. Who knew where the slavers were taking them. Probably halfway across the world, knowing that kind.

“Tell yours to stick together, to stay inside if they can. Make sure they know not to go with  _ anyone, _ not unless they know them,” Hakyeon said, choking on it. “We’re going to find them, and we’re going to get the bastards doing this, but until then–”

“I’ll spread the word,” the man promised. “I have some connections; I’ll make sure as many know as I can.”

“Thank you,” Hakyeon said, sincerely. “We’ll talk to the Captain, too. See what we can do about increasing patrols near the docks. And if you hear anything else–”

“I’ll find you,” the man promised. He stepped further towards the walled-off end of the alley, as though he was leaving even though there wasn’t anywhere to go in that direction. Then he turned back over his shoulder and winked at Hakyeon again. “It’s Sanghyuk, by the way,” he said, and then with a running start he leapt onto a discarded crate, pushed off the wall with one foot, caught the edge of a rooftop with his clockwork hand, and was up and over and vanished from sight in the space of a breath.

Well, then. At least Hakyeon knew how he’d escaped, that first day.

“Come on,” Taekwoon said, finally pushing off from the wall. His clockwork leg clanked and hissed as it settled into position beneath him. “We should finish our patrol and then take this to the Captain.”

“Right,” Hakyeon said, and peered once more at the spot where Sanghyuk had disappeared before turning away. “Of course.”

\---

They didn’t hear anything for weeks. The Captain doubled patrols near the docks and warned all the constables to keep their eyes peeled, but no new intel came up. It would have seemed like the slavers had gone to ground, except that every week or two Hakyeon followed a lithe form into an alley and came out knowing that more kids were gone.

“Sounds like you need to change how you look at the problem,” his mother said one evening, as Hakyeon polished his boots near the fireplace in their modest sitting area and she sat at her loom in the corner of the room. The thunk of the treadles and the rasp of the shuttle were noises familiar to him from childhood. She didn’t look up from her work as she spoke.

Hakyeon dropped the boot to the floor and rolled his head in her direction across the back of his chair. “How so?” he asked, humoring her. His mother was too often a fount of wisdom for him to do anything else.

She hummed and picked at a thread for a moment, and then her shuttle slid briskly across the loom again and she said, “If looking harder for these ruffians is bringing you nothing, perhaps you should stop.”

“But–” Hakyeon began to protest, and then stopped to think about what she really meant by that. His hackles lowered slowly as he considered. “You mean that we should lower patrols again and...wait and watch to see what they do?”

“When you were young, and believed that I was too busy to check on you while you were practicing your letters, you grew sloppy or even stopped entirely, yes?” She glanced at him as he nodded, and continued, “Likewise, if they believe that the authorities have given up on finding them, they might become careless.”

Hakyeon laid his head back again and let that thought sink in, really rolled the implications around in his mind for one minute, and then two. Finally he sat up and looked at his mother. “You’re right,” he said. “And once again, you have reminded me why I will forever need you.”

Her laugh was soft and low, barely audible beneath the clack of the treadles, but Hakyeon heard it. “How did I raise such a flatterer?” she asked, her eyes dancing. “Are you like this with all the girls?”

“Never,” Hakyeon swore, a solemn hand to his heart. “Only for you.”

She laughed again, even as Hakyeon rose and crossed the room to kiss the top of her head. “You’ve grown into a good man,” she murmured, pausing in her weaving finally to turn and look up at him, one of her work-roughened hands cradling his cheek softly. “Your father would be very proud.”

“Thanks, Ma,” Hakyeon said, taking her hand in his and brushing a kiss across the knuckles. He pretended there weren’t tears threatening to well up behind his eyes. “I have to go somewhere. I might be late.”

“I’ll bank the fire before I sleep,” she said, and patted him on the hip.

\---

Low clouds had dropped over the city, brushing the tops of the taller buildings and dropping wisps of fog into the streets to dance around the gas lamps and dull their light. Everything seemed muted, even the clack of Hakyeon’s heavy boots against the cobblestones. He shivered, even accustomed to the night as he was, and tucked his coat tighter about himself as he walked.

The streets grew dirtier as he went, the piles of refuse higher and the lamps fewer and further between. He was walking towards the poor districts, and then the poorer still, and the deeper he got the more people there were still on the street – men in threadbare clothing hunched on stoops, small gaggles of barefooted children slipping from shadow to shadow, and women with huge baskets carrying home washing or mending work to finish before morning.

Hakyeon had no idea where he was going, only a feeling that he was headed the right way. A few people stopped and gaped at him – perhaps because of the quality of his clothing, or the loud rap of his boots, or the shining scabbard hanging at his belt.

Up ahead, three children stopped at the edge of a shadow and watched him. When he’d grown closer, one brave girl called out, “You lookin’ for somethin’, Mister?”

He nodded and crouched down in front of them, said, “Man called Sanghyuk. You know him?”

The girl’s eyes narrowed and she shook her head. There was a smear of dirt across her temple and hastily-repaired rips in both knees of her breeches, but her pale blonde hair had been carefully plaited back from her face. “You sure you’re in the right place, Mister?”

“No,” Hakyeon admitted, with a wry smile. “But this was my best chance of finding him. You positive you don’t know him? He’s tall – maybe taller than me – and has a clockwork arm.”

“You mean the Clockwork Baron!” piped up the smaller boy. The other two children shushed him, the girl going so far as to put a quelling hand over his mouth.

“We don’t know him, Mister,” she said again. Her bland expression was impressive, considering the squirming child in her arms belying her statement.

Hakyeon tilted his head, considering the small boy. He couldn’t have been more than five or six, his face and neck coated in dirt and his clothes almost see-through from too many washes. The elbows of his shirt had patches sewn onto them, in that same hasty stitch as the girl’s breeches. “Why do you call him the Clockwork Baron?” he asked.

The girl scowled fiercely and opened her mouth to retort, but was interrupted.

“Why’re you askin’ ‘bout the Baron?” The voice was deep, and belonged to a tall, wide-shouldered man in a brown leather waistcoat and faded black shirt. His hair was brightly, unnaturally red.

Hakyeon rose to face him, one hand resting casually on the pommel of his sword. “I’m a friend,” he said slowly, and pasted on a bland smile.

“Hm.” The man stretched his neck slowly to one side and then the other. The low, open vee of his shirt revealed the edges of a swirling tattoo on his chest. With his head still dropped over his right shoulder, he smirked at Hakyeon. “Funny. He ne’er mentioned bein’ friends with any coppers.”

“He didn’t mention being friends with any deadbeats, either, but here we are,” Hakyeon rejoined, feeling his lips pull in a dangerous smile, the one that even Taekwoon found uncanny.

The man stared at him, and his eyes narrowed a fraction, heavy brows drawing low together. And then all at once he relaxed and threw his head back and  _ laughed,  _ a great belly laugh that had people a block or more down the street startling. “You’re brave, Constable, I’ll give ya that,” he said, when his chuckles had quieted. “No one that don’t belong here would risk comin’ so late to this part of town.”

“It’s important,” Hakyeon said.

“Would have to be, wouldn’t it?” the man said, nodding. He considered Hakyeon for another minute or two. “Why’re you lookin’ for the Baron?”

Hakyeon wondered how much he should say. He knew nothing about this man, nothing really about Sanghyuk, even. He’d trusted the man with the clockwork arm before he even knew his name, and he was just lucky that hadn’t come back to bite him yet. “He’s helping me with a problem, and I have something to discuss with him.”

“That wouldn’t have nothin’ ta do with these little monsters, would it?” the man asked, reaching down and ruffling the smallest boy’s hair. He squawked in protest and reached up to bat the hand away, but when it retreated he was beaming like he’d just been given a treat.

“In a way,” Hakyeon hedged. He breathed a sigh of relief when the man seemed to accept that answer.

“Go on and fetch the Baron; tell him ta meet us at the Fat Abbot’s,” he said, looking down his nose at the children. “And don’t be dawdling. You lot should be abed by now.”

The girl stuck her tongue out at him and whirled around, the other two children close on her heels. They disappeared silently into the shadows and were gone.

“Let’s go, Constable,” the man said, and turned to lead Hakyeon down the street. “The Abbot’s don’t have much in the way of edible food, but the mead’s alright. Assumin’ the Baron has time for us, shouldn’t be too long a wait.”

Hakyeon followed him to a rundown tavern with a creaking sign hanging over the door that featured a badly-painted monk clutching his own bulging stomach. The inside was dirty and poorly lit, but there was a blazing fire in one corner to chase away the autumn chill, and the portly man behind the bar yelled, “Ravi!” as soon as they walked in.

They got settled at a table and the portly man – the proprietor, as it turned out – brought over two mostly clean-looking tankards of ale, patted Ravi on the back, and left them alone.

“So,” Ravi said, and picked up his tankard and reclined back in his chair. It groaned ominously beneath his weight. “You been helpin’ our mutual friend with his problem.”

“Trying,” Hakyeon replied. He fingered the handle of his own tankard, eyeing the contents suspiciously. “I’m afraid not much progress has been made in that regard.”

Ravi leaned forward, the fabric of his shirt pulling at the shoulders as he rested his forearms against the table. His voice was low beneath the din of the other tavern patrons as he asked, “But you’re the reason they’re doin’ more patrols near the docks?”

Hakyeon shrugged. “I suggested it to the Captain. Seemed sensible, considering the circumstances,” he said.

“Considerin’,” Ravi agreed, but his gaze was heavy on Hakyeon’s face.

Hakyeon fought not to squirm beneath the scrutiny, but after a long minute he snapped, “See somethin’ you like?”

Ravi smirked, rocked back in his chair, and took a long pull of ale. “There it is,” he said, when he’d wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “I was just wonderin’ what it was the Baron saw in you. ‘Sides your pretty face, o’ course.”

Since Hakyeon had just raised his tankard to his mouth for a cautious sip, the resultant sputtering was rather wetter than he would have preferred. Ravi was laughing as he plucked a dark kerchief from the breast pocket of his waistcoat and offered it over, and Hakyeon had little choice but to accept. He mopped at his chin with as much dignity as he could muster, and then asked, “Has your curiosity been satisfied, then?”

“F’r now,” Ravi said, and then actually kicked the muddied heels of his boots up onto the table. No one even batted an eyelash. “You seekin’ the Baron out in his own territory, though, that’s either brave or stupid. Be interestin’ to find out which.”

Hakyeon ignored the flush that warmed his cheeks. Truthfully, he hadn’t been thinking terribly much when he’d run out the door, he’d just known that he had to do something, and that Sanghyuk was his best bet of figuring out what. “I imagine it will,” he muttered, and buried his embarrassment in his tankard of ale.

They sat for a while like that, drinking their ale and not speaking. Occasionally the general din of the place would be broken up by a bout of raucous laughter or shouting from one side of the room or the other, but Ravi didn’t seem concerned by any of it. Their table was sheltered anyway, in the corner of the room behind the large fireplace. It wasn’t completely cut off from the rest of the tavern, but enough so that there was a tangible barrier between them and the rest.

Hakyeon had enough time to acknowledge that the Abbot’s ale wasn’t half bad for a place that looked as though it should be serving swill, and to wonder how long they would have to wait for Sanghyuk to arrive and whether he should be nursing the drink more than he was, before the room abruptly went quiet.

In the wake of the ringing silence, the slam of the door was loud, as were the footsteps that approached their table. Sanghyuk slid into the empty chair between them and then the proprietor yelled, “Oi! Stop gawking, ye fools!”

The din recommenced and Sanghyuk stole Ravi’s tankard and propped the heel of one booted foot on the edge of his chair. He toasted Hakyeon and drained the glass, and when he set it back down he was grinning. “What brings you to my part of town, Constable?” he asked.

Hakyeon was fairly sure that  _ I don’t know _ was not an appropriate answer; not after he’d come all the way there and pulled Sanghyuk from whatever it was that he’d been doing. Perhaps sleeping, though he didn’t look like he’d just been in bed – his clothes were far too tidy, and his hair neatly plaited along the sides of his head before being pulled into his customary tail.

“I had an idea,” Hakyeon said at last. It was possibly mad, and so he hadn’t really even considered it, one of many ideas that had come up and been quickly discarded on his walk here.

Sanghyuk quirked an eyebrow and waited.

Hakyeon leaned forward, shoving his tankard aside to make space. “The increased patrols have only made them more careful,” he said, speaking slowly to allow himself to parse the idea in his head before it came out of his mouth. “So we should stop.”

“Stop patrols?” Sanghyuk asked. His frown drew lines around his nose and mouth, made him look his age or even a bit older, for once.

“On the surface,” Hakyeon explained. “Instead of uniformed constables on predictable routes, we put men in disguises and station them in suspect areas. Anywhere a child is known to have gone missing. Anywhere they’ve been kept at any point that we know of. Any other place that they might be abducting or transporting the children.”

“That’d take a significant number of men,” Ravi said, his voice a low rumble. He was rubbing his jaw, staring at the tabletop with concentration in his brow.

Hakyeon nodded, feeling the excitement bubble up in his chest despite himself. “Exactly. The Captain could never spare so many. But I know  _ you _ have connections,” he said, nodding to Sanghyuk. “If you know of people that we can trust – shopkeepers, residents, even beggars –”

“You’re suggesting we build some sort of...spy network,” Sanghyuk said, interrupting.

“That's exactly what I'm suggesting,” Hakyeon agreed. With a shrug of his shoulders, he picked up his tankard again. “Looking into the warehouse itself gave us nothing. Patrols have given us nothing. And every day that we wait for them to fumble and give themselves away, more children go missing. I’m inclined to stop that, in whatever way required.”

Sanghyuk nodded, flexing his clockwork fingers in a fluttering pattern like a wave – pinky folding in first, followed in turn by the rest until his thumb lay over them, and then back out the opposite way. Hakyeon couldn’t hear the click of the metal plates shifting over the general cacophony of the room, but it was familiar enough to imagine.

“Say we leave the patrols,” Sanghyuk said, after a long wordless moment. “The Captain and his men continue on, and we simply...add extra eyes and ears in the places that the strong arm of the law can’t reach.”

“Will that work?” Hakyeon had to wonder.

Sanghyuk scrubbed his flesh hand over his face, and when it came away he looked old – older than he had any right to, at twenty. He was drawn and weary-looking, and Hakyeon noticed again the gauntness of his face, the sharpness of his cheekbones that spoke of years of poverty.

He was stricken suddenly with a fiercely protective urge to feed Sanghyuk and had to push it away in favor of the matter at hand.

“It must,” Sanghyuk was saying, chin now resting in his hand, elbow on the table. He seemed exhausted, and Hakyeon couldn’t blame him. It was very late and the whole city should have been asleep hours ago. “There are no other options, that I can see. We’ve been looking for months, and are no closer to preventing our children from being taken. I’ve had hysterical parents at my door at all hours–”

He’d stopped, casting a sideways glance at Hakyeon, who fought not to react in any way. He had no idea who Sanghyuk was to these people, but it was clear that they all held him in high regard.

“You can make the arrangements, then?” Hakyeon asked.

Sanghyuk nodded. “I’ll find the most trustworthy of my connections. Ravi will help,” he said, nodding at their companion.

It would have to be enough. Hakyeon needed for it to be enough. “We’ll find them,” he said, though the words were all but empty. Regardless, it needed to be said, to give them hope even if truly there was none. “We will do everything we are able, and we  _ will  _ find them.”

“It surprises me that your Captain has supported this cause as long as he has,” Sanghyuk commented, listing towards Hakyeon slightly, though he seemed unaware of the movement.

Hakyeon leaned in some himself, as though it were just the two of them at the table, in the whole room. “If we allow this to pass without even attempting to stop it, then even more heinous crimes will follow. Any other Captain would do the same.”

Sanghyuk’s smirk was small and somehow private. “And yet somehow, I do not think that any other constable would act the way you are. Risking life and limb for those children, marching in for this cause without thought for your own safety, even coming to the slum in the middle of the night simply because you had an idea that might help us.”

“It is my duty–” Hakyeon began, and then had to admit that it wasn’t wholly the truth. Stopping the slavers was his duty. Saving those children was his duty. Going the extra mile this way, seeking Sanghyuk out though he knew so very little about him, that was not his duty. Laid out like that, it was all too easy to acknowledge the impulses that had driven him there.

Like the pretty face of the man before him, even starved and weary as it was. Like the bright mind and sharp wit behind the face. He was smarmy and baffling and he traversed rooftops as though they were roads and Hakyeon so enjoyed picking apart the mystery that was Sanghyuk.

“There is nowhere else that I would be,” he confessed, quite brazenly. Sanghyuk’s eyes were focused solely on him, dark and unreadable, and all the more tantalizing for it.

“These streets are not safe,” Sanghyuk murmured, moving closer still. “Especially for the likes of you, Constable. Coming here was foolhardy.”

Hakyeon tilted his head to one side and conceded the point with a soft sound in the back of his throat. “Still, foolhardy though it is, I’ll see it through to the end,” he said.

Sanghyuk’s grin was boyish, even as he shook his head. “You’re worse than a fool,” he said. “Whatever am I to do with you, Constable?”

“Please,” Hakyeon said, and he laid his hand on the table, very near Sanghyuk’s elbow but not touching. “Call me Hakyeon.”

“Ah, he has a name,” Sanghyuk said, and his clockwork fingers shifted and clacked together for a moment before he laid them over Hakyeon’s. “And yet still I wonder–” he leaned closer, until their faces were very near indeed, until Hakyeon could smell the sour tinge of ale on his breath and see a sparkle of mischief in his eyes, “what shall I do with you, Hakyeon?”

Hakyeon felt himself shiver at the sound of his name on Sanghyuk’s lips. The thrill in his belly begged for a hundred things from Sanghyuk, ranging from slightly embarrassing to wildly inappropriate, and his eyes lingered on the broad sweep of Sanghyuk’s shoulders. How had he ever thought this man just a boy? “Walk me home? Since you’re so concerned for me,” he asked, forcing back all of the other suggestions that tried to escape.

Sanghyuk’s brows rose, his nostrils flaring with a surprised intake of breath. “You’re not afraid of my knowing where you live?”

“At least to a safer part of town, then,” Hakyeon offered, compromising. Truly, he did not think that Sanghyuk would do anything nefarious with the knowledge even if he discovered Hakyeon’s place of residence, but it clearly sat poorly with him that Hakyeon would offer it so easily.

After a moment, during which Sanghyuk’s eyes examined every inch of Hakyeon’s face, he nodded. “Very well, Hakyeon. Are you ready to leave?”

Hakyeon responded by pushing back from the table and getting up. As he did so, he realized that at some point during their private conversation, Ravi had made himself scarce. A glance around the room put him at the bar, saying something to the proprietor that caused him to guffaw loudly enough to carry above the rest of the din.

Sanghyuk didn’t acknowledge anyone else as they left, not even Ravi, and he didn’t say a word until they were on the street and had walked a good distance from the tavern.

“Ravi is one of my most trusted friends,” he said, breaking the quiet. He kept his voice low, so that it wouldn’t echo against the wide, high walls on either side of them. “You were lucky to have come across him tonight. There are many others who would have led you ill.”

“Because I’m a constable? Or because I was looking for you?” Hakyeon asked, trying for a light tone of voice and wincing as he failed.

Sanghyuk’s glance at him spoke volumes, but he tucked his hands together in the small of his back and answered, in a voice considerably more casual than Hakyeon’s, “Both, most likely. The people here are mostly of two kinds, at least where I am concerned.”

“And those are?”

“I do what I can for them. I try to make life easier, as much as I’m able, especially for the weak and for children.” Sanghyuk’s face was hard to read in the darkness, but it seemed lined and drawn. Too old; far too old for such a young man. What burdens did he carry on his shoulders? “As a result, some hold me on a pedestal as some sort of holy savior. Others see that in spite of my efforts there is still need, or they consider their own need more important than that of the others that I help, and they resent me for not doing more.”

“What more could you do?” Hakyeon asked. His hand clenched reflexively over the pommel of his sword. The chill of the metal was grounding. “Your circumstances aren’t so different from theirs. Surely they realize that you’re giving all that you can.”

Sanghyuk’s shoulders took on an odd stiffness, only noticeable because Hakyeon was watching when it happened. He seemed to hunch in on himself, like a turtle retreating into its shell, before he remembered himself, shook out the tension, and straightened his back once more. “Regardless,” he muttered, turning his face away from Hakyeon, “I cannot change their opinions. I can only continue to do what good I can.”

“Like saving their children,” Hakyeon said, trying to lighten the mood and knowing that particular subject change wasn’t likely to do it.

“Like saving my own,” Sanghyuk said.

Hakyeon felt his brows lift in surprise. Sanghyuk was a man grown, that was true enough, but Hakyeon hadn’t expected that he was a father. “You have children?”

Sanghyuk’s laugh was low and rough in his throat, but endearing nonetheless. “You’ve met some of them,” he said, and then Hakyeon understood. When Sanghyuk had offered the orphans a place to stay after taking them from the warehouse, he had been offering a  _ home. _

“How many do you have?” he asked, looking out at the street rather than at Sanghyuk as his cheeks warmed.

“Other than the three we saved,” Sanghyuk said, voice light and perhaps even teasing, his mood lifted after all, “there are four more. Seven, in total. You met three more of them tonight, I believe.”

Hakyeon thought of a girl with meticulously plaited hair – much like Sanghyuk’s – and two small boys, all in worn clothes that had been hastily mended. It had been clear to him, in looking at them, that they were cared for by someone. He supposed it wasn’t much of a shock to discover that it had been Sanghyuk.

“They’re happy then? Well-fed?”

Sanghyuk laughed again, and turned to walk backwards just ahead of Hakyeon, like he couldn’t bear to miss his reactions for even a moment. “As well as I can manage. I’m teaching ‘em life skills, making ‘em learn their letters and whatnot. They don’t mind much, so long as I make it into a game.”

Hakyeon found himself smiling softly, thinking of Sanghyuk surrounded by adoring children, imagining the games he might have invented to convince them to learn. The thought was endearing, as was the obvious enthusiasm in Sanghyuk’s voice and manner as he spoke of the children he had adopted. “They’re lucky to have you,” he said, surprised by the way it purred on the way out.

It made Sanghyuk stumble, made his smile turn wicked and sultry and dangerous. He turned again, pressed himself close into Hakyeon’s side, and whispered nearly against the shell of his ear, “Are you envious?”

“No,” Hakyeon said, with a flutter of his eyelashes. “There’s no need for envy when the man in question has such a big heart.”

“Always room for one more?” Sanghyuk suggested. His clockwork hand rested against the small of Hakyeon’s back, a barely-there weight that made him shiver.

They were approaching a better part of the city and the gas lamps were getting brighter and closer together again. Most of the houses were dark, middle-class residents already sleeping, and there were fewer people on the street. Hakyeon realized that in spite of the supposed danger of the slum, he hadn’t once felt unsafe walking beside Sanghyuk. The other denizens of the dark had given them a wide berth.

“This is where I leave you,” Sanghyuk said, pausing at a street corner that was illuminated from three directions. He took Hakyeon’s hand and bent over it, brushing a kiss to his knuckles like he was some sort of maiden.

Hakyeon snorted as Sanghyuk straightened, seized him by the shirt, and pulled him in for a proper kiss.

The jolt of shock followed by his quick response to the kiss was gratifying. Hakyeon hadn’t been sure, even as he reeled him in, whether Sanghyuk would truly be amenable to it, in spite of his flirting. It was with relief and no small amount of pleasure that Hakyeon swiped his tongue across Sanghyuk’s lips.

Sanghyuk responded by dragging blunt teeth over Hakyeon’s lower lip as they parted. He exhaled roughly through his nose, dropped another kiss to the corner of Hakyeon’s mouth, and then took a sharp step back. “That was unwise,” he said, his voice as tremulous as Hakyeon had ever heard it.

“Only if it never happens again,” Hakyeon said. His hand was still clutching Sanghyuk’s shirt, as though begging him not to go. He removed it and took a moment to smooth the worn fabric down, not truly regretting the wrinkles he had caused. If Sanghyuk looked ruffled after that interaction, it was only right.

“You’re a constable and I’m–”

“A thief?” Hakyeon interrupted, tilting a smirk at Sanghyuk. “Yes, I’d noticed.”

Sanghyuk shook his head, but even as he did so he closed the distance between them again, as though he simply could not stay away. “It will never work between us. We’re too different, you and I.”

“My father died when I was eight years old,” Hakyeon said, shrugging his shoulders a bit and letting his hand come to rest on Sanghyuk’s chest again. “My mother has worked very hard for very many years in order to provide for me. If circumstances had been any worse for us, I may well have found myself where you are.” He cocked his head, caught Sanghyuk’s eye, and imitating him, said, “We’re not so different, you and I.”

“How you test me, Hakyeon,” he muttered, his head drooping until it was nearly level with his chest and the only natural thing for Hakyeon to do was tangle his fingers in the loose hair at the nape of his neck. “If your Captain finds out….”

“I hardly see how it’s any of his business.” Hakyeon pressed his cheek to the crown of Sanghyuk’s head. “And I imagine that in any case, there are a great many things to sort out between us before  _ anyone _ finds out.”

“Yes,” Sanghyuk said, and sounded faint, “I suppose there are.”

Hakyeon waited for a moment that turned into two and then perhaps ten, content to hold Sanghyuk in that way and allow him to decide when they should part. The fog was beginning to clear, the damp not so heavy and unrelenting as it had been, and he found himself comfortable like that, with Sanghyuk’s head resting on his shoulder. His lips found Sanghyuk’s soft hair and his fingers worked gently at tense muscles in his neck and shoulders.

Finally Sanghyuk’s head lifted, and he nosed softly at the side of Hakyeon’s face for a moment before brushing the gentlest of kisses against his cheek. “This is where I leave you, for tonight,” he said, an echo of his earlier gallantry.

Hakyeon returned the chaste kiss, unwilling to push any further, and said, “Thank you for walking me home.” He almost left it there, almost turned to walk away without another word, but he couldn’t help asking, “You’ll find me?”

Sanghyuk smiled, the tiniest shadow of the boyish grin returning. “I’ll find you,” he promised, and then he stepped down the mouth of an alley, and with a few taps of soft leather shoes and the scrape of metal fingers against roofing tiles, he was gone.

\---

He reappeared just a few days later, in the late evening while Hakyeon was on his way home from the precinct. In the shadows of an alley, with his arms around Hakyeon’s waist, Sanghyuk whispered updates into the delicate shell of his ear.

“My spies are in position,” he said, and scraped his teeth over Hakyeon’s earlobe. “If they move within half a kilometer of the docks, we’ll know.”

Hakyeon breathed slowly through his nose, stroked thoughtfully along the back of Sanghyuk’s neck, and asked, “Should I tell the Captain our plan?”

Sanghyuk huffed a laugh into his skin and sucked a kiss into Hakyeon’s pulse point. “I assumed that you had told him already.”

“No,” Hakyeon said, and gasped when Sanghyuk licked a stripe up his neck. “No one knows; not even Taekwoon.”

“It’s your choice,” Sanghyuk said.  _ “Gods,  _ you’ll be the death of me,” he added, and then he claimed Hakyeon’s mouth in a searing kiss that left him reeling even after Sanghyuk was off across the rooftops and long gone.

\---

The next time Hakyeon saw Sanghyuk it was early morning, the sun just barely risen over the rooftops and Hakyeon not even to the precinct to report for his patrol yet. He pulled Hakyeon into his arms but did not immediately start kissing him, and his face was grim.

“What happened?” Hakyeon asked.

“Charlie’s gone,” Sanghyuk said. His mouth pulled down further at the corners as he said it, and his brow furrowed heavily. “No one’s seen him since yesterday morning. I checked everywhere, all his usual haunts, and I’ve had half the street kids watching for him, but he’s just–” he broke off abruptly with a choked sound in the back of his throat. Hakyeon, with shock, realized that it had been a sob.

“Charlie’s one of yours?” he asked, to be sure, even though he had never seen Sanghyuk react this way to anything before. Even as short as their acquaintance had been, Hakyeon could tell that this was out of character.

Sanghyuk nodded, head bobbing excessively, and then he dropped his forehead to Hakyeon’s shoulder and began to cry in earnest.

“Alright,” Hakyeon murmured, and stroked his back with one hand. “We’ll find him. Whatever it takes, Sanghyuk, do you hear me? We  _ will  _ find him.”

All he got in response for a moment was chest-rattling sobs, but eventually Sanghyuk calmed himself, and with a shuddering breath he straightened. There were tear tracks down his face, his eyes red and puffy, but he scrubbed it all away with the heel of his flesh hand and took a step back from Hakyeon.

“Charlie’s nine, brown hair, green eyes,” he said, clearly trying to pretend that this was a business matter and nothing more. “He was wearing a blue shirt last I saw him. He thinks he’s invincible, and I keep telling him to take one of the others with him when he goes out, but he never  _ listens–”  _ He cut himself off again, visibly shoved down the emotion trying to rise, and continued, “He knows not to go with strangers, though. Which means either he knew whoever took him, or they snatched a scrappy nine-year-old with the screech of a hyena in broad daylight without anyone seeing.”

Hakyeon felt himself growing cold at the thought, but he managed to keep it from showing on his face. “Double check everyone you chose as a spy. Chances are, either it was one of them who took him, or they saw who did it and looked the other way. I’m not saying that I don’t trust your judgment, Sanghyuk–”

“But we don’t know who to trust anymore,” Sanghyuk interrupted. “I will. And I’ll have Ravi assess my decisions. I’m not thinking so clearly right now.” He scrubbed his hands over his face again, looking, for once, very young. Too young for the kind of responsibility he’d been handed. Too young to be parent to so many children that he was clearly devastated to think of losing.

“You’re sure you can trust Ravi?” Hakyeon had to ask.

“With my life,” Sanghyuk replied without hesitating. “He’s already saved me once.” He held up his clockwork hand, like it was an explanation. Perhaps it was.

Hakyeon breathed out and said, “Alright.” He reached for Sanghyuk, wrapped his fingers around Sanghyuk’s metal wrist, and repeated, “We’ll find him, Sanghyuk.”

Sanghyuk offered him a cracked facsimile of a smile. “Say it a few more times and I might even believe it,” he murmured. He leaned forward and dropped the briefest of kisses to Hakyeon’s mouth, and then he turned and shuffled away down the alley. He didn’t even bother to take to the rooftops, but stepped out into the street and disappeared into the flow of traffic.

And Hakyeon was left behind, wondering if they really would find Charlie, and if whatever tenuous relationship was between them would survive if they did not.

\---

As he walked his patrol with Taekwoon, Hakyeon contemplated telling him everything. On the one hand it might simplify things, or at least make them more bearable for having spoken them aloud. On the other hand, there was always the chance that Taekwoon, his oldest friend or not, would berate him for getting involved with a criminal that he had known barely two months.

Perhaps sensing his disquiet, Taekwoon had also been unusually subdued. They were like two silent sentinels floating amidst the crowd.

The marketplace, today. Everything was so much louder even than the normal city noise. People bartering for a better price, sellers hawking their wares, children shrieking with laughter as they darted between stalls – all above the general hubbub of a well-trafficked area. Hakyeon wondered how he had managed this patrol, the scant few times he had done it before he spent six weeks alone on the docks in the quiet dark.

From between a cart full of blooming autumn flowers and the stall of a fish vendor emerged a girl with blonde hair in a careful plait, and behind her trailed a very young boy with dark hair and dark eyes, whose face Hakyeon realized with a jolt that he recognized from the night at the warehouse. The girl, also, was familiar, and when she stopped in front of him, looking defiantly up at his face, Hakyeon immediately knew why.

He crouched in front of them and pasted on a smile, his hands resting loosely on his knees. Taekwoon had halted just beside him and remained standing.

Hakyeon leaned in a little closer, lowered his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, and asked the girl, “What news from the Baron?”

She scowled at him, but dropped an awkward, stiff curtsey, as though she’d been told to and found it distasteful. “I’m to tell ye that the Baron urgently awaits your presence at the Fat Abbot’s, Constable, Sir.” She said the last with an undisguised sneer.

With a grin that made her scowl deeper, Hakyeon reached into his coin purse and extracted a few small coins which he dropped into her hand. “My thanks, young lady,” he said. “Go and buy yourself a treat, and bring some to your brothers and sisters as well.”

Her face shifted to something more like grudging respect, and she bobbed another odd curtsey before skittering off, her brother at her heels.

“Well,” Hakyeon said to Taekwoon, standing. “It seems I’ll have to break protocol yet again.”

Taekwoon pulled a watch from his pocket and flipped open the face, and then tucked it away again. “It’s close enough to the end of our patrol. I’ll tell the Captain you had urgent business relating to our ongoing investigation.”

Hakyeon clapped him on the shoulder with a grateful look. “Remind me to get you some sort of gift as thanks when this is all over,” he said.

Taekwoon smirked at him. “Trust me, I’ve already picked out what I want.”

Laughing, Hakyeon gave him one last nod and turned away, already walking as quickly as he was able in the direction of the Fat Abbot’s. If the streets were less crowded, he might have been running.

For Sanghyuk to send two of the children looking for him, for him to send  _ anyone _ instead of coming himself, meant either very good news or very, very bad.

Hakyeon prayed as he walked, and as soon as the traffic thinned out enough, he ran.

\---

Outside the Abbot’s, Hakyeon forced himself to pause and breathe. He was in his uniform still, sword at his waist, and he knew how it would look to the patrons of this particular tavern if he burst in at a run. The last thing he wanted was to cause panic.

So he let his breathing slow some, let his pounding heart calm, and then he pushed through the door and stepped into the tavern.

There were few enough patrons, as it was early afternoon, but still half a dozen men looked up as he entered. Their reactions to his presence ranged from dismissal to open hostility, but he ignored them all, observing the room and then, when Sanghyuk was nowhere to be found, walking directly up to the bar.

The proprietor seemed to recognize him from the last time, but he continued wiping the tankard in his hand without pause and, eyeing Hakyeon up and down, asked, “Somethin’ I can do for ye, Constable?”

Hakyeon nodded and, aware of their audience, lowered his voice when he answered, “Heard the Baron was lookin’ for me.”

The proprietor glared around the room for a moment, perhaps convincing the other patrons to mind their own business, and then said, “Right, this way, Constable.”

He took Hakyeon through a door behind the bar, which opened into a narrow corridor. Three more doors branched off from it, and it was the furthest that he led Hakyeon to. He pulled a massive keyring off his belt, knocked three times, and then unlocked the door and pushed it open.

Sanghyuk was inside, and he wasn’t alone.

Ravi was with him, his shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows and his knuckles flecked with blood. It was obvious that the blood wasn’t his own, because he was standing behind a chair to which a man was tied, and there was blood dripping freely from his nose, which was crooked and might have been broken.

“Constable,” Sanghyuk said, as soon as the door had been shut behind Hakyeon and the proprietor was gone. “I apologize for calling you away so suddenly.”

Hakyeon barely recognized Sanghyuk, so stony was his face. They had found their traitor, then.

Sanghyuk turned towards their...prisoner was the only word for it. “Jaehwan was just about to tell us why he  _ allowed strange men to take our children.” _

Hakyeon took a step towards Sanghyuk, but didn’t dare touch him. He just waited, unsure what else he could do.

The prisoner – Jaehwan – made a strangled, anguished noise. “I didn’  _ want to,”  _ he whined, the noise strange and throaty because of the blood trickling from his nose. “You know work ‘as been scarce and my ma is sick, an’ he offered  _ so much gold.” _

_ “Who, _ Jaehwan?” Ravi growled, gripping the back of his neck and leaning threateningly over his shoulder.

Jaehwan took a deep breath and coughed. Pink-tinged spittle flecked his lips. “He said if you ever asked me that–” he looked up at Sanghyuk, and his face was distorted and ugly with pain– “I should tell ya only this: the real Baron sends his regards.”

Sanghyuk’s face darkened like a stormcloud, and he went to a crate at the side of the room and picked up a small dagger. Hakyeon’s breath hitched in anticipation of what he might do, but he only went over to Ravi and handed him the knife, and then he bent down in front of Jaehwan.

“Desperation makes men do many things,” he said, his voice shockingly even. “But you offered _ children _ up for coin instead of turning to your neighbor for help in your time of need, and for that I cannot abide your presence any longer. I disown you, Jaehwan. You will have no more contact with me and mine.”

And then he stood and put his back to Jaehwan, and added, “Ravi, see him out. And ensure that his mother receives proper care.”

After the last, Jaehwan began thanking Sanghyuk and begging forgiveness in equal measure. He continued even as Ravi severed his bonds with the knife and pulled him up and out of the room.

“That was a great kindness, after what he did,” Hakyeon commented when they were alone.

“His mother does not deserve to suffer for his crimes,” Sanghyuk replied. He crossed the room and set his hands on the edge of a crate, and his head drooped between them in defeat. “He was a good man, led astray by poverty like so many are. He made a mistake. I’ll take him back, in time, if he proves himself worthy.”

“Then you’re kinder than I would be, in your place,” Hakyeon said, and finally let himself approach Sanghyuk, let himself lay a hand on his shoulder and then slide his arm around Sanghyuk’s waist.

Sanghyuk sighed and leaned into the hold. “I swore once that if I could be nothing else in life, I would be kind. It is a petty form of revenge, but the only one that I had at my disposal.”

“Revenge?” Hakyeon asked. He laid his cheek on Sanghyuk’s shoulder and started absently stroking his hip.

“It seems pointless now,” Sanghyuk murmured. One of his metal fingers scraped a rhythmic pattern against the crate. “After I discovered the atrocities he was committing I swore to be as different from him as was possible. I left him and his lifestyle behind and did not once look back.”

Hakyeon laid his hand over Sanghyuk’s fidgeting one and it stilled. “Who?”

Sanghyuk’s breath shuddered, his shoulders shaking as though he was straining to hold himself together. Hakyeon found himself gripping him tighter about the waist, attempting to keep him in one piece.

“The real Baron,” Sanghyuk said on a croak. “My father.”

\---

An hour or two later, after Sanghyuk had straightened and put on a neutral expression like a mask, and after they had slipped back out into the main room of the tavern and claimed a table, Ravi returned.

“Jaehwan’s mother’ll likely make a full recovery,” he said in greeting, signalling the barkeep for a tankard of ale.

Sanghyuk and Hakyeon, who had been drinking in silence for the last several minutes, just watched him.

“Figured that’d be good news,” Ravi said, clearly attempting to joke. It fell flat, if only because both of his companions were so preoccupied.

Finally, Sanghyuk spoke. “I need you to go back to Jaehwan,” he said.

Ravi blinked and took a moment to parse these words. “You just disowned him.”

“And I’ve found a way that he may be able to regain my favor,” Sanghyuk retorted, and then stared into his tankard in what, if Hakyeon had to guess, was probably abject frustration.

Ravi sighed, slumped over the table on his elbows, and said, “Right. Clearly you’ve come up with a plan. You gotta fill me in a bit, as I can’t hear your thoughts no matter how loudly the cogs up there spin.”

Sanghyuk cracked half a smile at that, and even Hakyeon found that his spirits were lifted slightly. He stood and set a hand on Sanghyuk’s shoulder. “You’ll tell him? I should catch the Captain before he retreats home for the night.”

He was spared a soft look, and Sanghyuk’s flesh hand laid over his for a moment. “I think I can handle Ravi. Off with you, Constable.”

Hakyeon pinched him, and trotted off while Sanghyuk was still protesting.

\---

His meeting with the Captain was a long one, and night had fallen by the time he exited the precinct. It was clear and cool, the moon shrunken to a sliver overhead.

There was a tall man loitering just outside the pool of light cast by one of the gas lamps up ahead, and Hakyeon was not at all surprised to discover that it was Sanghyuk. He stepped out of the shadows when Hakyeon neared and offered a soft smile.

“Did he agree?” Sanghyuk asked, opening his arms.

Hakyeon nodded and stepped into the circle of his embrace. “It required quite an argument on my part, but he saw reason.”

“Excellent,” Sanghyuk said, and nuzzled into Hakyeon’s hair, kissing the shell of his ear. They stayed like that for a few moments more, and then Sanghyuk stepped back again. “Come,” he said, “there’s something I want to show you.”

He led Hakyeon by the hand down the street and then into an alley, where he stopped by a pile of crates.

“Is this what you meant to show me?” Hakyeon teased, giving the dirty alley an exaggerated look.

Sanghyuk huffed out a laugh and shook his head. “No, but this is the easiest way to get there,” he said. “Look, watch me and copy what I do.” And then he hopped onto the lowest crate in the stack and started to climb until he was nearly level with the roof.

“You want me to climb up there,” Hakyeon said, careful to keep his voice very flat. He wasn’t sure how Sanghyuk would react to the terror that had begun fluttering his heart faster and faster.

Sanghyuk smiled again and held out his hand. “It’s not hard,” he promised. “I’ll help you.”

Hakyeon took a deep breath and held it. If he fell, he might die. If they were caught, there was a chance that he would find himself unemployed.

He looked back up at Sanghyuk’s hopeful face and put one booted foot on the crate. It wasn’t so hard, getting up to where Sanghyuk was, but then Sanghyuk turned and pulled himself up onto the roof, and Hakyeon’s heart pounded harder yet.

“It’s alright,” Sanghyuk said. He turned back to Hakyeon and offered his hand again, and against his better judgment Hakyeon took it and allowed Sanghyuk to pull him over the edge of the roof. They paused there, and Sanghyuk’s arm went around Hakyeon’s waist. “I will not let you fall, Hakyeon.”

“Right,” Hakyeon said, and resolutely did not look down.

“Hakyeon,” Sanghyuk said, and looked him in the eye. “Trust me.”

Hakyeon’s heart stuttered for reasons that had nothing to do with how high they were. “I do,” he said. With his life, as it turned out.

Sanghyuk’s grin was bright and infectious, and he took Hakyeon’s hand again, towing him across the rooftop and then to another that was connected. They continued like that for a while, stepping only from rooftop to rooftop in a row, sometimes slightly up or down but never over a gap, and then they reached a street over which they could not pass.

“Trust me,” Sanghyuk reminded him, and walked in his soft leather shoes over to a narrow beam that stuck out from the side of the building and extended halfway into the street.

Swallowing thickly, Hakyeon followed. His own heavy boots were much louder on the roofing tiles, no doubt alerting the occupants to their presence, but all his attention was on that beam, and a similar one protruding from a building across the way that ended very near it. Hakyeon had no doubt that Sanghyuk intended for them to jump over to it.

Sanghyuk went first, stepping easily like a tightrope walker, hopping across the gap between beams as though it was nothing, until he had safely reached the other side.

Hakyeon stared in horror at him and was paralyzed. It seemed like such a long way. How Sanghyuk had not fallen was a miracle. Did he do this every day? How was he still alive?

“Breathe. You can do this, Hakyeon,” Sanghyuk called softly across the large chasm between them.

“I can’t,” Hakyeon said, unsure if his wavering voice would even be heard at so great a distance.

“You can.” Sanghyuk stepped out again, to the end of the second beam, and once more his hand beckoned Hakyeon forward. “It’s not far now, Hakyeon. And it will be worth it, once we reach our destination.”

Hakyeon forced his weak legs closer to the edge. He looked down at the street below and immediately regretted the choice. If he fell from this height he would surely break his neck. It  _ wasn’t safe– _

Sanghyuk was there, right in front of him now, his hands cupping Hakyeon’s cheeks, one cold and one very, very warm. “I won’t force you,” he said, watching Hakyeon’s face. “But I think you’re strong enough for this, Hakyeon.”

Hakyeon took a breath, and then another. He let his head come to rest against Sanghyuk’s, until their breath mingled and all he could see was Sanghyuk’s sparkling, dark eyes. “Alright,” he said after a time. “Alright, lead on.”

But instead Sanghyuk guided Hakyeon ahead of him, and kept his hands steady on his waist as Hakyeon stepped out onto the beam, and then further and further. There was a terrifying, heart-stopping moment when he wasn’t sure whether he could cross the gap between – so small once he was there and yet so very, very large – and then Sanghyuk’s hands had left his waist and Hakyeon was at the other side and he fell to his knees on the rooftop and pressed a hand to the hammering beat of his heart inside his ribcage.

“I knew you could,” Sanghyuk said, and he was on his knees as well. He took Hakyeon’s face in his hands again and kissed him, exultant, his grin boyish and wide, the sparse moonlight enhancing the angles of his face as he laughed.

Afterwards he stood and helped Hakyeon get up as well. Then he said, “Not far now,” and set out across the rooftops again.

There wasn’t another feat quite so daunting on the way, though there were more gaps to cross, and gut-wrenching drops from one rooftop to another much lower. Sanghyuk taught him how to take a running leap to reach a taller building, how to grasp the edge and use the momentum to swing himself up.

Hakyeon found himself exhilarated, his focus more on the feel of the wind in his hair and the strain of his muscles as he pushed himself to follow Sanghyuk’s lead and less on the terrified pounding of his heart and the tight rush of his lungs. The night was dark but he felt lit up inside, imagining what more he could do with Sanghyuk there beside him.

When they reached their destination finally, it was to discover that the last feat wasn’t really a feat at all, after everything else. They were on a rooftop that connected to a high stone wall, and against that wall was a heavy wooden ladder.

Sanghyuk smirked at him, grasped a rung, and began to climb. Hakyeon followed, and when he reached the top he realized where they were, and what it was that Sanghyuk had wanted to show him.

They stood on the roof of the old cathedral, the highest building in the city, and Hakyeon could see for a great distance in every direction at once. The high cliffs around the inlet where the docks sat in the north, the sweeping villas of the city’s nobles to the west, the factories and foundries in the south, and the slums to the east. He had never realized how near the center of the city the cathedral sat.

Sanghyuk had retreated further, and leaned his shoulder against the heavy stone of the bell tower, yet higher above them. Hakyeon went to him, still breath-taken and awed by the view around them, even shrouded as it was in the midnight dark.

“I found this place my second month in the city,” Sanghyuk said. “My arm was damaged as I fled from the Baron’s country estate and it took me weeks to find anyone who would fix it without immediate payment. I was fortunate that Ravi allowed me to work off what I owed him for the repairs, and gave me a place to stay and regular meals besides.”

“Not everyone is so lucky,” Hakyeon murmured. He leaned against the bell tower beside Sanghyuk and gazed up at the sky, sparkling with stars twice as bright for the partial absence of the moon.

Sanghyuk hummed in agreement. “Whenever I wasn’t working for Ravi or searching for other employment, I was exploring the city. He hated that I was constantly climbing walls and buildings, said I was going to break more than just my metal arm, but….”

He trailed off and didn’t seem inclined to finish speaking, but Hakyeon didn’t push. He could understand well enough what Sanghyuk meant, anyway, because the sight up there was indescribable, and the rush of their travels across the rooftops was still pumping hot in his veins.

After several minutes of gentle silence, Hakyeon asked, “How did it happen? Your arm?”

“This?” Sanghyuk held the clockwork hand up and flexed it. The gears whirred cheerfully. “I was born without it. My father–” he choked on the word, coughed, and then continued– “he thought I would be disadvantaged. He got me the best arm that money could buy; nothing else for his only son.”

Hakyeon could hear the sneer in Sanghyuk’s voice, could guess that it covered more difficult emotions, and wanted to tell him to stop, that he’d heard enough.

But Sanghyuk pressed on, determined. “He never stopped reminding me where I would be without him. That I would be a  _ ‘useless cripple’  _ if he hadn’t dropped a few coin on me. Nevermind that I never cared about having two arms, or that the procedures were so painful and I was  _ just a child–” _

He stopped again, and this time it was because his whole body was shaking. Hakyeon curled around him immediately, cupping one hand at the back of his head, the other resting between his shoulder blades, and shushed him gently.

“It’s alright,” he whispered, and felt ragged sobs shudder through Sanghyuk’s chest. “It’s over. You’re alright.”

Sanghyuk cried on, and Hakyeon could do nothing but hold him.

\---

In the end, they stayed on the roof of the cathedral until well after sunrise. They had sat down at some point, backs resting against the bell tower and arms still around each other. It had been silent between them for a long time, but as the first rays of light began to break over the horizon, Hakyeon found himself speaking, talking about his childhood, his father, his mother.

In return, Sanghyuk told his own stories, soft and halting. It was clear when he left things out, when he stopped early because a good memory quickly soured. He spoke more of Ravi and the children that he had adopted, of the community he had created there in the slums, than he did of his life before coming to the city.

Hakyeon did not mind in the slightest. Every bit of Sanghyuk’s life, painful or happy, was a precious gift that he had no right to and yet was being given willingly.

“And then Donggeun just gave her this innocent smile, and she not only forgave him, but handed him the rest of her sweets and told him to just ask next time,” Sanghyuk said, tilting his smiling face into the warmth of the rising sun.

Hakyeon laughed and pressed a kiss to Sanghyuk’s hair. “They sound wonderful, Sanghyuk. The lot of them. I wish I knew them better.”

Sanghyuk’s head tilted down, and he said softly, “You could. If you wanted.”

“I would like that very much,” Hakyeon agreed. He turned into Sanghyuk more, until they faced each other and he could give Sanghyuk a proper kiss. “When this is over, and Charlie is home. I would like to meet them properly.”

Sanghyuk pushed forward for another gentle kiss. “You will,” he said. “When Charlie is home, you will.”

\---

There were a thousand things that Hakyeon would rather do than return to the docks at night. Especially that night, with a low fog rolling in off the sea and blanketing everything in a muffled sort of darkness. It was far too easy to imagine who or what could be hiding in every shadowed corner or alcove they passed.

But Sanghyuk was beside him, his warm presence and the soft whirr of his clockwork arm small comforts in the gloom.

They did not speak as they walked, their faces set in grim determination. For better or worse, everything would end tonight.

It felt like a taunt, that their meeting was set to be held in the same warehouse where Sanghyuk and Hakyeon had saved those five children, so many weeks ago. Had the slavers really known all along that they were working together? Or was it simply a coincidence, or a suitably careless owner, that had led them back there?

The door opened without a struggle, already unlocked, and Hakyeon entered first, his hand on the pommel of his sword.

It was brighter inside than the last time they’d been there, an oil lamp sitting on a crate that had been set in the middle of the wide space. Behind it stood two men. One of them was Jaehwan, his face contorted uncomfortably. There was bruising around both of his eyes and across the bridge of his nose which looked even worse in the shifting shadows of the oil lamp’s flickering flame.

The other man was almost as tall but much wider than Jaehwan’s rail-thin form. He stood back farther, so that the shadows of the warehouse hid his features, but he wore a heavy riding cloak and the fine leather of his boots shone in the dim light.

Sanghyuk stepped out in front of Hakyeon and there was the soft grinding of metal against metal as his fists clenched at his sides. “Father,” he said, his teeth gritted, “how good to see you.”

There was a deep chuckle and the man in the cloak stepped forward into the light. He had the same wide nose as Sanghyuk, and there was something about the shape of his brow or the tilt of his mouth that matched his son’s features, but there was a malice in his face that morphed him into something ugly and unnatural.

“Sanghyuk,” he said, his mouth twisting strangely around the word. “It’s a miracle you’re still alive.”

“No thanks to you,” Sanghyuk scoffed.

“I gave you everything you could have asked for,” the Baron said, voice dripping with sweet venom. “A home, a life of luxury,  _ two arms–” _

“I never asked for that,” Sanghyuk snapped, cutting him off. “You never asked what I wanted, if I was  _ willing–” _

The Baron’s laugh broke through Sanghyuk’s tirade, harsh and mocking. “You were a child. You didn’t know what you wanted.”

Hakyeon jerked forward a step, ready to hit the Baron for his hurtful words, but Sanghyuk stopped him with a hand to his arm. His voice was cold when he asked, “Where are the children?”

“What, the urchins you think you’re protecting?” the Baron replied with a smirk. “Long gone by now. Off to somewhere they’ll be useful.”

Sanghyuk was slow to respond, the rise and fall of his chest measured and steady. “Where are you sending them?”

The Baron’s face stretched in something that might have been a smile on a less evil man. “Harvesting poppies is delicate work, you know,” he said, seemingly apropos of nothing. “It’s best done by someone with very small hands.”

Hakyeon’s stomach dropped and his whole body went cold. It was suddenly very obvious why they had taken so many children. “Opium,” he spat.

“Your friend is smarter than he looks, Sanghyuk,” the Baron said, sounding approving. It made Hakyeon’s skin crawl with disgust. “Yes, Constable, as it turns out, opium is a very lucrative business opportunity. My operation is still small, but I’ve already made a fortune. There could be a substantial stipend available to you, should you be interested.”

“In exploiting children?” Hakyeon asked, affecting a casual tone but letting the hand on his sword hilt speak for itself. “Sorry, but I’m not really soulless enough for that type of work.”

“Pity,” the Baron said, but his tone suggested he couldn’t have cared either way. “I imagine things would be much easier if I had a Constable willing to assist me.” He seemed to consider Hakyeon for a moment longer, and then turned his attention back to his son as though the conversation had never happened.

Sanghyuk’s gaze in return was icy. “Where are they?” he asked again, tone as even as ever. Hakyeon had no idea how he was so calm. If it were his son that this man had taken, Hakyeon would already have a blade to his throat. He would never be able to stand calmly by and question him as though he was only inquiring about the time.

“If you hadn’t run away from home like a  _ child, _ you would already know,” the Baron growled. His fist slammed down against the crate and the lamp wavered.

“The country estate, then,” Sanghyuk said, and finally his mouth drew up, in a mocking smirk so different from his father’s that Hakyeon couldn’t even compare the two. “Foolish, Father, to grow illegal poppies on land owned under your real name.”

The Baron laughed again. “So many years have passed and yet you’re still the same naïve child, Sanghyuk.”

Sanghyuk approached his father with silent steps. “I haven’t been a child since the first time a doctor  _ cut into my flesh _ to attach a clockwork arm I didn’t want and hadn’t asked for.”

“I made that choice to help you,” the Baron said with a scoff. He leaned heavily on the crate and seemed unconcerned with how close Sanghyuk was standing. “You would have been nothing but a cripple without me. I made you who you are.”

Sanghyuk shook his head, and the fingers of his flesh hand danced across the hilt of the knife in his belt. “No,” he rejoined. “I became who I am in  _ spite _ of you,  _ Baron.” _

It was at that moment that a flood of constables burst into the warehouse, led by the Captain, who held a pistol to the Baron and said in a commanding voice, “By order of the Crown, I charge you with crimes of kidnapping, child slavery, and illegal drug racketeering. You will surrender yourself into my custody.”

The Baron’s eyes cut from the Captain back to Sanghyuk and it was with great vitriol that he spat, “You went to the authorities.”

“I told you, Baron. You’re foolish, and you had nothing to do with the man I’ve become.”

Hakyeon put the shackles on the Baron himself, and watched the Captain lead him away. With a whir and clank of gears, Taekwoon stepped up beside Hakyeon and clapped his shoulder, and then he followed the rest of the constables back out of the warehouse.

“That felt too easy,” Sanghyuk murmured, as he watched his father’s retreating back.

Hakyeon went over and wrapped an arm around Sanghyuk’s waist, drawing him in. “There are still all of his underlings to arrest, and the children to be retrieved. This is far from over.”

Sanghyuk sighed, and he tucked his nose into Hakyeon’s hair and inhaled deeply. “I just want to bring Charlie home. I don’t care about anything else.”

“Then let’s go. You know where they are, right? Let’s bring him home.”

“Baron,” a voice said, and suddenly Jaehwan circled around and knelt in front of them. “Please, Baron, I did what you asked.”

Sanghyuk’s lips quirked up into a mirthful little smile. He laid a hand on Jaehwan’s shoulder. “You’re forgiven, and I wish your mother well. The next time you need help, you come to me first, you understand?”

“Yes, Sir,” Jaehwan said, and then he seized Sanghyuk’s hand and kissed it before he hurried out of the warehouse.

When he was gone Sanghyuk laughed and buried his face in Hakyeon’s hair once more. “Do you see what I mean about the hero worship?” he asked on a half-breath.

Hakyeon chuckled along with him, grateful that it was over at last, and that Sanghyuk was still whole and beside him after it all.

\---

The Baron’s country estate was only a few hours from the city by train, and the Captain had seen fit to arrange transport for a dozen constables to retrieve the kidnapped children and arrest anyone who was responsible.

Sanghyuk was technically not invited, but nonetheless could be found on the train next to Hakyeon, who had no objections at all to his presence. He could not help but notice, however, that the poppy fields mysteriously went up in smoke just as their train back to the city departed. It was just as well – they would have been destroyed regardless, and he imagined it gave Sanghyuk a sort of catharsis to burn away that symbol of his father’s betrayal.

“Oi,” Sanghyuk snapped at two bickering children in dirty, threadbare clothes. One of them was Charlie, whose chin was perpetually set at a stubborn tilt. “Behave. We’ll be home soon enough.” He produced from somewhere a bag of candy, which he distributed amongst them, one piece set carefully in each grimy palm.

In the end, they’d found thirty-one children. Many of them had homes and families waiting for their return, but at least half a dozen were orphans. Hakyeon knew without asking that Sanghyuk had already decided to take them in. He would have expected nothing else.

He did wonder, though, how he was going to house them all, let alone feed and clothe them. Hakyeon had chosen not to question where Sanghyuk’s money was coming from, though he had some idea, considering how they had met. But it was probably something that they should have a conversation about, at some point.

Not there, though, on the train in front of thirty-one children and twelve constables. There would be time to decide what they were going to do in the future.

\---

One day, not so many days afterwards, Hakyeon stepped out of the precinct into the fading twilight of the early winter evening and found Sanghyuk standing under one of the gas lamps waiting for him. There was something different about him, though it took Hakyeon a few moments too long to realize what it was, so occupied was he in gazing at the soft smile gracing Sanghyuk’s face.

His clothes, though, were new, and the fabrics finer than he usually wore. They were still sturdy, working-man clothes, but the deep blue shirt and dark coat were of a quality with Hakyeon’s uniform, rather than the rough, threadbare rags he’d always worn.

Hakyeon went to him, let Sanghyuk wrap wiry, strong arms around his waist and fingered the collar of the new shirt. “Blue looks good on you,” he murmured.

“Hello to you too, Constable,” Sanghyuk said, a soft tease in his voice.

“It’s Sergeant, now,” Hakyeon corrected, unable to fight down the proud smile that stretched his lips. “Captain Lee gave me a promotion. It was a big case I helped crack, you know.”

When Sanghyuk chuckled, his breath made a white cloud in the chill air. He leaned in for a brief kiss. “I have something I want to show you,” he said.

Hakyeon raised an eyebrow. “This doesn’t involve climbing on rooftops again, does it? Because as a police Sergeant, I really should not be seen so flagrantly disregarding the rights of citizens.”

Sanghyuk shook his head and took Hakyeon’s hand, leading him down the street. “We’ll stick to your roads tonight, then,” he said, and winked at Hakyeon.

There were still people out and about, though fewer and fewer the longer they walked. Hakyeon realized, as they traveled west, that the thinning of the usual crowds was not so much the hour or the winter chill as it was the place. They were entering the richer parts of the city, the small, crunched houses and squat tenements giving way to larger homes and eventually wide manors, some of which even had gardens.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

But Sanghyuk just grinned at him, almost dancing across the cobblestones, and his eyes sparkled in a way that promised,  _ you’ll see. _

He led Hakyeon up a little paving-stone path to the arched entrance of a large, red-brick manor house. The double doors were made of dark wood and set with elaborate stained glass windows. Their delicate green leaves and dark red roses nearly glowed with the light that came from within the house.

He turned to Sanghyuk, wondering whose doorstep they were standing on, but Sanghyuk simply pulled a key from his pocket and unlocked the door, gallantly gesturing Hakyeon inside.

The inside was just as ornate as the outside, with a plush rug spanning nearly the whole foyer and a wide, curved staircase leading up to the second floor. There were gas lamps on the walls and several of them were lit, filling the space with warm light.

Sanghyuk closed the door behind them and spread his arms wide, gesturing at the whole house at once. “What do you think?” he asked.

Hakyeon was still busy gaping. “Whose house is this?”

“Mine,” Sanghyuk replied, and let his hands drop. He hooked his thumbs in his pockets and looked away from Hakyeon for a moment before meeting his gaze again. “The Crown rescinded my father’s title after his arrest. As his only heir, I’ve inherited everything.”

“Everything?” Hakyeon said, feeling a bit faint. He couldn’t even imagine how much money that might be. He rather suspected that he didn’t want to know.

Sanghyuk nodded once. “I suddenly find myself in possession of a large fortune and a barony that I never expected nor wanted. But if I’m to have an income of ten thousand a year, I might as well make good use of the coin. And the house seems much less empty with fifteen children spilling out of the bedrooms.”

It was then that Hakyeon noticed the shuffling, and someone said, “Stop pushing!” in the high voice of a child who thought that they were being quiet. His smile and Sanghyuk’s grew almost as one, and with their silence came increased noise from the doorway into what Hakyeon thought was probably a formal sitting room, judging by the glimpse of a gilded sofa that he could see from where he stood.

In another moment, the bickering and shuffling devolved into shoving and a familiar, blonde-headed child stumbled into the foyer. She was cleaner than the previous times Hakyeon had seen her, and like Sanghyuk she was wearing new clothing, a sturdy shirt and breeches with nary a tear or a fraying hem in sight.

“Hello, Jackie,” Sanghyuk said, with an indulgent sort of patience in his voice while his eyes danced with suppressed mirth.

Jackie’s head bobbed in greeting to Sanghyuk, but then she turned her gaze back to Hakyeon and stared plainly. “What’s  _ he _ doin’ here?”

Sanghyuk came over and took Hakyeon’s hand again. His metal fingers were cold. “I told you I was bringing him to see the new house,” he said. He turned to the doorway from which she’d emerged and called, “You can all come out. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

A row of children slowly trailed from the adjacent room. Some of them Hakyeon recognized – Charlie was there, and tiny, dark-haired Donggeun who Hakyeon had helped Sanghyuk rescue from the slavers months ago. He knew more faces than names, but as they filed in and lined up obediently, he looked into all of their eyes and knew that he would grow to love them all as much as Sanghyuk undoubtedly did.

Sanghyuk squeezed Hakyeon’s hand. “Hakyeon,” he said, nearly bouncing with a joy that seemed uncontainable, “these are my kids. Kids, this is Hakyeon.”

There was a chorus of rote greetings, some voices more sincere than others, and Hakyeon smiled in reply. Fifteen children that Sanghyuk had taken in and made his own, each one clean and well-dressed and clearly loved, and Hakyeon’s heart felt so full that he could barely breathe.

And then he found himself facing Sanghyuk, who took hold of both of his hands and said very seriously, “There’s just one thing I seem to be lacking now.”

“Oh?” Hakyeon asked, feeling light-headed. He refused to swoon like a noble in too tight a corset.

“I’ve heard that most men of a certain age, who are in possession of a title and a good fortune, must also be in want of a spouse.”

His words were almost flippant, the tone as casual as it was possible to be when proposing what Hakyeon thought he was proposing. There was, really, only one possible way for Hakyeon to react to such a pronouncement.

He hit Sanghyuk hard in the shoulder.

There was an uproar of tiny, indignant voices, and Sanghyuk just stood there clutching his wounded shoulder and looking hurt.

“Is that your idea of a marriage proposal?” Hakyeon demanded over the din, crossing his arms and ignoring the little hands that started tugging at his clothes.

Sanghyuk shrugged and gave Hakyeon a smarmy grin. “That depends entirely on your answer,” he replied.

Hakyeon affected irritation for a moment longer, but in the end was unable to keep the soppy smile off his face. “We’re both fools,” he said, but stepped forward to kiss Sanghyuk anyway.

The children had some choice words about that as well, but Sanghyuk silenced them with a single gesture and they all stalked grumpily from the room.

“You make me happy, Hakyeon,” he said, when they were alone. “Suddenly I want for nothing, and yet the only thing I can think of is how greatly I need you.” He lifted Hakyeon’s hand and kissed each of the knuckles in turn. “Would you do me the great honor of becoming my husband?”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Hakyeon sighed, and then he pressed his forehead gently to Sanghyuk’s and let the affection flood him the way it wanted. “Yes, I will.”

\---

Sanghyuk employed a dozen of his most trusted people to run the manor house, and dozens more who were willing to move to the country estate and tend the fields – crops and livestock now, instead of poppies.

The house was never quiet, with fifteen children scurrying around, and Hakyeon discovered that his mother was even better than Sanghyuk at directing them. It was her who taught them their sums (as Sanghyuk was surprisingly hopeless at them), and how to weave and sew and embroider. Hakyeon could only teach them swordwork, but several of them took to it with a passion – especially Jackie, who might make an excellent Constable someday.

Slowly they made the manor their own. His mother’s loom found its way into a corner of the formal sitting room, a school room was set up to accommodate desks for fifteen growing children, and nearly every bedroom was filled. There were always mouth-watering smells wafting from the kitchen, and little voices echoed from every corner of the house.

And Sanghyuk and Hakyeon took the master bedroom and tore out the pretentious old brocade curtains and bed linens, had them made into clothes for the children, and replaced them with more practical options in dark greens and browns. Hakyeon’s sword found a home leaning against the wardrobe and the small writing desk in the corner was nearly always covered in a jumble of official papers that Sanghyuk needed to go through.

But it was more common, when they were alone in that room together, for them to fall into the bed and not leave it again for hours.

When they did leave the house together, Hakyeon was usually wearing soft leather shoes instead of the heavy boots of a constable. It was also exceedingly common that on these outings, they would slip down a side alley and seemingly disappear.

There were rumors throughout the city, and more prolifically in the slums, that the old cathedral was haunted. That sometimes late at night, two shadowy figures would appear on the steep roof beside the bell tower, and they would stay there motionless until just after sunrise, when they would suddenly vanish.

It certainly had nothing to do with them, nor with the continued whispers about the Clockwork Baron that seemed to spread to every corner of the city. Even in the parlours of nobles the stories were murmured behind upraised fans – the Clockwork Baron was a fairytale. He’d never existed at all, or perhaps was more than one person.

After all, as the years passed, there were more and more sightings of the Baron. And the witnesses’ descriptions never seemed to match up: he was tall, or short, with cropped hair or long, and some even said that he was truly a  _ Baroness. _ But they all could agree that wherever the Clockwork Baron went, fortunes for the poor and mistreated improved.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to come yell with me on [Tumblr,](https://phantomflutist.tumblr.com/) [Twitter,](https://twitter.com/phantomflutist) or [CC](https://curiouscat.me/PhantomFlutist). I'm a hot mess but I like new friends.


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